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In the wake of a mass shooting or fresh data on gun violence, pundits and the media often blame the US’ high rate of gun ownership and deaths on a deeply rooted “gun culture.” For many—particularly advertisers—this culture conjures ideas of morally strong, empowered, self-reliant, American patriots bearing arms. And it grazes notions of masculine heroes, protectors, and providers.

But it’s difficult to define a single culture behind gun ownership and the opposition to gun control legislation that sometimes accompanies that. More importantly, blaming something as vague as “culture” isn’t exactly helpful for identifying ways to reduce the US’ high death toll.

Further Reading

Aiming for more useful data, researchers tried to hit on factors behind why people own guns and their attachments to them. Who owns guns and how do they feel about their possessions? And how do those feelings affect their stances on gun policies?

From a survey of more than 1,500 Americans, sociologists at Texas’ Baylor University plumbed the demographics, characteristics, and opinions of 577 gun owners. As expected, gun owners held wildly different perspectives on their guns and gun control, the researchers report in Social Problems. In particular, there was a wide range in how “empowered” owners felt. That is, if they felt their guns made them some combination of safe, responsible, in control, valuable, respected, and/or patriotic.

Still, there were clear patterns.

Gun owners, on average, were more likely to be white, male, married, older, conservative, and from rural areas; they also tended to feel socially alienated, the authors report. Of the gun owners who didn’t feel very empowered by their guns, most were women, who also tended to be politically moderate. In general, the “least empowered” subsection of gun owners tended to clump into people who seemed to use guns simply for defense or as collectors’ items.

Those in the “most empowered” subgroup were most likely to be white men who reported feeling like they were in a financially precarious position. (Conversely, men of color were less likely to feel empowered by their firearms if they had money troubles.) The empowered white males were also more likely to strongly oppose gun control measures, such as bans on certain weapons, and less likely to support mental health screening for gun purchases. They were also the most likely to report that violence against the government might be necessary or justified.

In all, the authors conclude that white men use gun ownership to mitigate economic distress. In other words, “economic distress enhances the extent to which white men, specifically, come to rely on the semiotic power of a cultural symbol... [they] utilize guns as a foundational source of power and identity.”

Moreover, “because a vocal and passionate minority of gun owners continues to feel emotionally and morally dependent on guns,” the authors expect the notion of a “gun culture” to live on and gun control efforts to remain weak.

Gun ranges

For the study, Baylor’s F. Carson Mencken and Paul Froese surveyed 1,572 Americans in the 48 contiguous states in January 2014. The demographics of the bunch more or less fit with those of a general society survey done earlier.

Further Reading

The survey included questions about whether respondents owned a gun and, if so, what kind and for what purpose (e.g. hunting, protection, recreation, collector’s item). The survey then asked about symbolic aspects of gun ownership, such as if gun ownership made a respondent feel “more valuable to my family” or not. Last, the survey included questions about gun control policies and the source of gun violence in the US. (See slide show below).

The researchers then combined the responses with demographic and other data, including age, sex, religiousness, income, feelings of financial stability and social alienation, political views, and overall life happiness.

In addition to the demographics already mentioned, gun owners tended to report higher incomes than non-gun owners and the same levels of education, economic instability, and happiness.

How gun owners compare with non gun owners.

The questions used for the empowerment index.

Questions related to policy and violence opinions.

Questions about economics, alienation, empowerment.

The survey respondents vs. general society survey.

For an “empowerment” index for gun owners, researchers calculated a score for each respondent based on their level of agreement with eight statements: “Owning a gun makes me feel: (a) safe; (b) responsible; (c) confident; (d) patriotic; (e) in control of my fate; (f) more valuable to my family; (g) more valuable to my community; (h) respected.”

Though some of the empowerment categories were small, those in the low- to medium-empowerment categories tended to use guns as collector's items, for defense, or for recreation. (More than two-thirds of those in the low-medium category used rifles for recreation).

Of the high-empowerment group, 74 percent had handguns for protection. Nearly half of the group thought that violence against the government might be necessary—a 40-percent jump in the number who said the same in the next-lower empowerment group.

Breakdown of empowerment categories.

The breakdown of empowerment categories.

The correlation between economic uncertainty and empowerment.

The correlation between gun empowerment and feelings about violence against the government.

In terms of associations, 'feelings of empowerment' was positively linked to lower education levels and negatively linked to higher education. Similarly, empowerment was linked to attending church—but just to a point. Those who reported attending church more than once a month were less likely to be highly empowered by their guns.

The authors suggest this may mean that “religious commitment offsets the need for meaning and identity through gun ownership.”

In terms of policy attitudes, 90 percent of gun owners agreed that they wanted expanded gun safety. But gun empowerment was statistically associated with stronger opposition to gun control laws. It also led to a stronger support for concealed weapons/carry permits and arming school teachers. The researchers did not identify which measures they felt would improve safety.

Further Reading

In terms of perceptions about the cause of gun violence in the US, women, nonwhites, older, and better-educated gun owners were most likely to see the availability of guns as a significant factor in violence. White men, on the other hand, tended not to blame guns. They were also the most likely group to see insurrection as justifiable.

“These findings indicate that a portion of gun owners who feel empowered by the gun form a distinct interest group—one that opposes gun control and feels that social problems and perhaps even personal troubles might be best solved by guns,” the authors conclude.

Though more research is needed to fully understand gun ownership and sentiments, this data may explain variation within the gun-owner population and offer a more nuanced understanding of the cultural context around guns.

Promoted Comments

This article misses many key and basic points about firearm ownership in America....

Maybe that's because they're reporting the results of a specific study that doesn't have anything to do with the paranoid defense that people like yourself insist on mounting?

The evidence suggests that some people are more likely to view guns as a method of empowerment than others. The data suggests this is more common amongst men than women. The data suggests that this is more common among white men than black men. The data suggests that this is more common amongst poor white men than rich white men.

It makes sense, too. People like myself, who have a significantly large amount of money, very rarely feel their power is in doubt. I'm very comfortable. I work for a federal court and understand the government, the laws, and the economy relatively well. I don't feel powerless. Yet it's completely understandable that someone for whom all of these things wasn't true would be more likely to need something to help them with the normal anxieties that people feel.

It's not a matter of blame or that guns are bad. It's literally about understanding why there's such an emotional connection for many people. It's likely because there are a lot of white men who don't have money, who feel the system isn't helping them, that they've had a loss of power relative to others and it helps to have something of a talisman of power like a firearm. The fear of a government seizure of all guns is a bit over the top, but it's understandable because they really feel powerless against a lot of changes in society.

Honestly, the best take away from this is that if we, as a society, want to move away from gun worship, the way forward is to find ways to end the economic disparity in this country, to make sure that people aren't left behind, and to provide economic security to people regardless of skin color.

The idea that this is anti-gun is ridiculous. It's better seen as anti-poverty. Guns aren't the cause, here, they are an object of fascination for people who feel disenfranchised by poverty.

So just white men, then? I mean, really? This is lousy science designed to portray gun owners in a negative light.

Other than one of its conclusions, which you so clearly dislike, what specifically is your quarrel with the quality of the survey? If one of the study’s conclusions was that ethnic minority men or white women were more likely to feel empowered by gun ownership, would you feel similarly aggrieved?

Meanwhile, at least half the citizens of the US own guns and as far as I can tell, gun ownership cuts across all race, gender, and socioeconomic lines. There is no stereotypical gun owner except in the minds of those who seek to banish the right to own a gun.

The study is not about gun ownership per se, but about the symbolic power of guns and the feelings of empowerment associated with gun ownership. I suspect that you’re right to a degree that “gun ownership cuts across all race, gender, and socioeconomic lines.” Nevertheless, based on previous studies, which this study cites, “gun owners TEND TO BE white, middle-class, middle-aged, and politically conservative men.” (emphasis mine). That is a value-less statement. The study makes no policy recommendation regarding gun ownership.

I doubt very much that gun ownership has any correlation to people feeling financially uncertain versus those people were the ones who ended up in the sample.

The study specifically disputes this. For whites, Figure 2 on page 16 shows a clear positive correlation between feelings of gun empowerment and economic distress as measured by the reported number of items of economic precarity.

It's not like some rich shooters are going to waste their time answering some survey. People who enjoy the shooting sports largely avoid reporters and survey takers because they know that those people aren't there except to cast shooters in a negative light, so why bother with them?

What is the empirical basis for these statements? Anecdotally, “rich shooters” could just as easily be over-represented in survey data because their wealth affords them more free time to be at home to answer those survey calls or allows them to have cellphones on which those calls can be received. Similarly, “rich shooters” with knowledge of surveyors' alleged biases against them could demonstrate a higher propensity to participate in such surveys specifically so as to dispel those biases. The point is this: I don’t know whether certain important demographic segments are misrepresented in this study – and neither do you.

Guns are a fetish? People who say things like this should go spend time in a country where people live in fear every day--fear of government thugs who come and take what they want, fear of roving criminals and gangsters. Try Venezuela or Honduras or hey, even France these days.

Don't believe me? Go re-read the US Bill of RIghts. Read the 3rd Amendment--the one about people having the right to not quarter soldiers in their homes. Think about what sort of heavy oppression existed for anyone to have to even think about writing that Amendment. Then ponder the 2nd and 1st Amendments over again and why they exist.

This is irrelevant to the subject and substance of the study. It is not about the utility of guns. It is simply about the symbolic power of them.